"Laura chose this week to give up her place as the last decent Bush"

[Bluebear]

The Pombo Ugly Last Campaign of Laura Bush
John Nichols in The Nation


Pity Laura Lane Welch Bush. A solid Democrat who placed her ideological values in a blind trust when she married into the Republican royal family, she now has been forced by the collapse of her husband's political fortunes into the most sordid of circumstances. The bookish Bush, who has devoted her tenure as First Lady to the gentle pursuits of promoting literacy and trying to smooth the jagged edges of her beau's administration, has now been put to the task of retaining Republican control of the House of Representatives. As the sole person closely associated with the Bush presidency who is still approved by a majority of Americans, she alone can be dispatched to states like California by the most political White House in American history. She alone can try to execute the most serious electoral repair job a presidential administration has had to engage in since newly-minted President Gerald Ford ventured onto the campaign trail in the Watergate year of 1974.....


The poor woman actually claimed with a straight face that, "U.S. Rep. Pombo is an enthusiastic steward of our country's natural resources. Because of his leadership, wildlife, property and people will be protected from dangerous flooding." As lies go, that's a pretty big one, since Pombo, a supporter of selling public lands to mining interests and a passionate advocate for opening up federal wildlife reserves for oil drilling is running for reelection with the support of oil, gas and timber companies and with the opposition of every major environmental, conservation and wildlife protection group in the country.

But the biggest lie was the suggestion didn't involve Pombo personally. Rather, it was the suggestion that Mrs. Bush -- a woman who has quietly but firmly distanced herself from the GOP's social agenda and whose oft-stated sympathies for public education and public libraries put her very much at odds with the policies and spending priorities of men like Richard Pombo -- really thinks America would be better off with a Republican Congress.

It is a nasty spot that Laura Bush finds herself in during the last days of a rescue-mission campaign to save the political hides of some of the saddest excuses this country has ever seen for legislators. But when you marry into royalty, as Prince Diana and so many others have warned us over the years, you must surrender a big part of yourself. For her part, Laura Bush has chosen this week to give up her ideals, her conscience and her hard-won reputation as the last decent occupant of the Bush White House.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20061105/cm_thenation/1136849

[MattSh]

1. This week???

For her part, Laura Bush has chosen this week to give up her ideals, her conscience and her hard-won reputation as the last decent occupant of the Bush White House.

Sorry, she gave up her ideals, her conscience and her reputation as a decent human being eons ago.

[Bluebear]

2. Well, I won't argue with that! And welcome to DU!

[MattSh]

18. Hmmm....

Curious about the Ukrainian flag in your post. Either someone's been paying attention to what I say ( :party: ), or you're my neighbor?

Ain't too many other 'murikens over here.

[Nicole]

3. Agreed n/t

[Nicole]

4. Welcome to DU n/t

[Raine]

8. Agree ...

it happened when she bedded with the devil the first time. :puke:

Welcome to DU!:-)

[sarge43]

12. Indeed

She's a Stepford wife who mouths a script.

Welcome to DU.

[Human Torch]

5. She gave up that chance at an intersection in Texas, forty three years ago.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/bush/laura.asp

In May 2000, a two-page police report pertaining to a fatal accident that had taken place near Midland, Texas, in 1963 was made public. It Laura Bush contained the information that 17-year-old Laura Welch had run a stop sign, causing the death of the sole occupant of the vehicle hers had struck. According to that report, the future First Lady had been driving her Chevrolet sedan on a clear night shortly after 8 p.m. on 6 November 1963 when she entered an intersection without heeding the stop sign and there collided with the Corvair sedan driven by 17-year-old Michael Douglas. Also in the car with Laura Welch was a passenger, 17-year-old Judy Dykes.

How fast Miss Welch might have been driving is open to question. That part of the police report is illegible, although two biographies of the First Lady refer to her as having been going 50 mph at the time of the collision. The speed limit on that portion of road was 55 mph. According to the police report neither driver had been drinking, but no tests were performed. No charges were filed as a result of the accident. News accounts from 1963 reported the young man as having been thrown from his car and dying of a broken neck; he was pronounced dead on arrival at Midland Memorial Hospital. According to various biographies of Mrs. Bush, the boy's father had been travelling in a car immediately behind his son's and witnessed the whole thing. The two teen girls were taken to the same hospital and treated for minor injuries that amounted to bumps and bruises.

Michael Douglas, the young man who was killed, had been a member of Laura Welch's crowd at high school and her friend. He had been a star athlete, excelling in track and football, and was looked up to by his peers not just for his athlete prowess, but for his personality and intelligence too. By all reports, he was likeable, outgoing, and funny. He was nominated as the school's most popular boy while a junior, an honor that almost always went to a senior.

The accident is difficult to understand it that it took place on a clear night on dry pavement at a crossroads described as "the middle of nowhere," where the view was unobstructed and the stop sign that faced Laura Welch was clearly visible. (The intersection was a two-way, not a four-way, stop.) Yet looking to only weather and road conditions to explain what happened is to miss the obvious: there were two teen girls in the car, girls who were on their way to a party and thus who likely would have been bubbling over with chatter about who would be there. Laura Welch, the driver, had turned 17 only two days earlier. She and her passenger were still of an age when they could all too easily shut out everything going on around them, even the approach of another car and the recognition of a stop sign.

[JI7]

6. she had a mother of a dead soldier kicked out and arrested

for asking why her son had died in Iraq. that was over 2 years ago.

though personally i believe one can't really be a Bush and decent. unless you go the way of Ron Reagan Jr as he has with his own family. i haven't seen a Bush do that. i see stupid "oh, she isn't as bad as the others" crap while they continue to support their shitty politician husbands, dads etc.

[Garbo 2004]

7. Nichols makes it sound like Bush hasn't been in CA campaigning. He has.

Just last month Bush was here campaigning and fund raising for Repubs like Pombo and Doolittle. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-10-03-bush-campaigning_x.htm

Laura's did a follow up tour, a month after GW. So Nichol's claim that only "she alone" could be or has been sent out to campaign here is wrong.

As for Nichols' going on about "her ideals, conscience and her hard-won reputation as the last decent occupant of the Bush White House," what has he been smoking?

"WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In her first public comments about Bob Woodward's explosive book "State of Denial," first lady Laura Bush sharply denied claims in the book that her husband has misled the public about the level of violence in Iraq." http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/26/laura.bush/index.html

""Franklin Roosevelt didn't want to go to war, but he knew defeating tyranny demanded it. And my husband didn't want to go to war, but he knew the safety and security of America and the world depended on it."
- Laura Bush at 2004 RNC Convention on the Iraq War.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=451

There's more one can cite, of course. Nichols has his thesis, but it just happens to be factually wrong.

[bowens43]

9. she was never decent. she helped to care for the beast.

[Disturbed]

10. She also campaigned against Stem Cell Research.

She has been a viper since she stepped foot in our White House. The placid smile and soft spoken manner fooled a lot of gullible people and the RW Corpse Media promoted her as the "sweet and nice" 1st Lady, Ms. Goodie Two Shoes. She is a phony just like her Sociopath husband.

[leftchick]

11. good article but

she has always been a sham just like her husband. I will order the authors book, it sounds great!

http://www.amazon.com/Genius-Impeachment-Founders-Cure-Royalism/dp/1595581405

[Ian David]

13. Today is the anniversary of the day Laura Bush killed Michael Dutton Douglas

See:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=106&topic_id=29503&mesg_id=29503

[NOLADEM]

14. Sad that the last decent Bush can still kill someone (drunk?) driving

and get away with it because her family is connected, then abandon every core belief she has just to marry 'well'.

This lady has LOOOOOOOOONG since sold her soul.

That's why she is has a pill-head perma-grin. She cannot continue any other way.

[acmejack]

15. Pity her?

More like revile her! I cannot find it within me to pity this woman who can sit in her place of privilege and support her evil spouse, the man sending our children to their deaths, the man killing hundreds of thousands, impoverishing millions and lying to our faces. No pity from me. I may be a stone hearted bastard but so be it...

[wishlist]

16. She has enabled and propped him up for years and deserves blame

Bush has always surrounded himself with enablers and in particular women who do his bidding and defend and cover up for his mistakes. I have no respect for any of his enablers, they are as much to blame as him.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

17. Where the heck was she when her husband's slime machine attacked McCain's wife?

Better yet, how can McCain embrace and kiss the viper that tried to destroy his family. And why hasn't his wife divorced him yet?

They are all morally corrupt.